One of the projects I undertook over the Thanksgiving holidays was to create a new series of abstract algorithmic artworks. The first of these artworks that I’ve made available on Redbubble and Crated is the piece Euclidean Chaos.

The Euclidean in the title is a reference to Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system described by the Greek mathematician Euclid in his textbook on geometry titled simply Elements, written sometime around 300 B.C. The fundamental "space" in Euclidean geometry is the plane. The chaotic aspect of Euclidean Chaos is, what is visually, a countless number of intersecting planes which constitute the artwork.

My analogy for this artwork is the cosmological concept of the multiverse or parallel universes – a system wherein there exists an infinity of non-interacting universes, each unaware of the other’s existence.

I hope you like Euclidean Chaos and will visit its pages on Redbubble and Crated (by clicking the buttons above) to see the variety of art product offerings available for this artwork.

Coastal Cliffs At Sunset is my newest work of digital art – which I completed on the Fourth of July. Stylistically I’m not sure how I would categorize this art. Clearly it is not representational art. It’s not really abstract art though it features abstraction. It’s not cubist either though it uses elements of cubism. Nor is it surreal – although in creating this artwork I employed some surrealism.

The creation of this artwork came on the heels of my creation of Stepping Through Time using a new workflow and algorithmic processing technique I developed. In fact the process that I used to create Coastal Cliffs At Sunset is very similar to the process I used to create Stepping Through Time – which you can see on either Redbubble or CRATED.

Computational Synthesis is a work of digital art I completed a few days ago which combines elements of algorithmic art and generative art with continual input from the artist. At the time I created this work I had no idea what to title the piece. In creating this artwork, I did have a clear idea visually and aesthetically of what I wanted to create but had given no thought to a title. After completing the piece, I turned to social media. I posted the artwork in a few places and asked for suggestions as to a title. Some suggested titles were:

Abstract Structure

Digital City

Discreet Time

Constructor Theory

Shifting Perspectives

Cityscape, Sky View

Aerial View Of Cyberscape

Monolith Metastasis

Fragmentation

While I did not use any of these titles, I do owe a thanks to the people who suggested them as they served as input to my thought process. Giving a title to a work of art can lead the observer in a certain direction when they are viewing the artwork. In choosing a title, I had to determine how well the title fit with what I was trying to say artistically. And therein lay my chief problem in coming up with a title.

I finally decided on Computational Synthesis as the title. Typically when one thinks of computational creativity, it is more in terms of the "machine" itself being the creator with the source of its creativity being within the framework of its design. In the case of this artwork, the computational component refers to my use of computational methods to produce a particular aesthetic style while synthesis points to the fact that I, the artist, was an equal partner in the creative process.

I created this artwork using an evolved version of a program I created and wrote about in Artistic Creativity and the Evolution of an Idea. For comparison, take a look at a previous artwork I created using an earlier version of this program:

Following are links to the open edition version of Computational Synthesis on Redbubble and Crated, as well as a link to my contact page if you are interested in the availability of the limited edition print version of this artwork.

In closing, the question I ask myself is am I satisfied with the state of the program I used to create this artwork or do I want to continue to explore evolutionary pathways? I have no answer at the moment but ultimately that answer may well depend on whether or not I have a Eureka moment.

Fresh Brewed Coffee is a digital painting I completed a few days ago. Just as macro photography provides us with extreme close-up views of things, Fresh Brewed Coffee is a work of macro art in that it represents a close-up view of the bubbles on the surface of a freshly brewed cup of coffee. What I particularly like about this macro perspective is that it lends the artwork an abstract appearance. You can click the image above to see an enlarged wallpaper of this art.

Now I’ve been making coffee using a coffee press (aka French press) for years but I had never really "looked" at those bubbles that were floating around on the surface. Perhaps it was the lighting, but it was this one instance of brewing coffee that inspired me to create this particular artwork.

To create the artistic effect I wanted, I did some rewriting of one of my generative art programs. This involved modifying both basic functionality as well as the variety and scope of the parameters associated with the paint brush engine. FYI, what initially inspired me to write my own painting programs was a combination of the limitations of the Adobe Photoshop paint brush engine with a desire to create art that was unique to me – since I do not make my programs commercially available. For those digital artists who are also software savvy, I suggest checking out Processing (Java), openFrameworks (C++), or Cinder (C++).

The version of Fresh Brewed Coffee shown here is the open edition version and is available for purchase online at the following print-on-demand (POD) sites:

Orion Nebula Sans Stars is my newest work of generative astronomical art – created using one of the generative art programs I’ve written. This is actually my second version of this artwork. I was working on the first one, had finished it, keyed in the save command and watched as my program went belly up with an out of memory error. Certainly a problem traditional artists don’t have to deal with. That version of my generative painting was 12000 by 7800 pixels. Restarting I went with a scaled down canvas size of 10200 by 6600 pixels. Upon completion, I held my breath as I entered the save command and let out a sigh of relief once the save successfully completed.

As a long time fan of space and astronomy, I’ve always been fascinated by the visual wonders of our universe and the Orion Nebula has always been a favorite of mine. What is most aesthetically appealing to me is the structure and colors of the dust and gases that comprise the nebula. It is for that reason that I created this version of the nebula without any stars. For me, they’re a distraction. Of course without those stars there wouldn’t be an Orion Nebula.

About the Orion Nebula

Nebula come in several flavors. The Orion Nebula is an emission nebula meaning it is sort of a neon light in the sky. This is because the gases we are seeing have been radiatively excited by ultraviolet radiation emitted by nearby hot young stars. The Orion Nebula is also referred to as a reflection nebula and a diffuse nebula. The Orion Nebula is about 40 light years wide and is just over 1,300 light years away from us. It’s location in our sky makes it a part of the constellation Orion. In the map of the Orion Constellation below, the Orion Nebula is located at the center of the red circle.

Orion Constellation Skychart

At magnitude 4, the Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in our night sky and is even visible to the naked eye (unless you happen to live in a major city). The Orion Nebula was discovered independently by several astronomers in the 1600’s, the most prominent being Christiaan Huygens. It was given the designation M42 by Charles Messier when he added it to his catalog of objects in 1769.

In closing I must say that the Orion Nebula, minus its stars, makes for a wonderful work of abstract art. What do you think?

A few days ago I received an invitation to join an online site for artists named Nabaroo. I had never heard of them but as stated in their email, Nabaroo is a new network for artists and I was being extended an invitation "based on your exceptional work." I regularly receive unsolicited invitations from businesses marketing one service or another. In fact I recently received an invitation from another online service for artists – that one being a print on demand site. In checking them out I decided that they were not a site that I wanted to do business with. You can read my review of their service in the article A Review of Selling Art on Artist Become (artistbe.com).

So I decided to give Nabaroo a look. In some respects, UI/UX for example, Nabaroo is similar to Pinterest. In other respects it is unique. It has a clean design and it is easy to create collections so you can organize your art into groups. They also make it very easy to add new content. Aside from being able to post/share your art and videos (in a process called nabbing), the site offers a Discussions feature and a Jobs section where artists can search for employment opportunities.

What I found particularly appealing, and unique, is Nabaroo’s Shop feature. When an artist shares their art on Nabaroo they are given the opportunity to add a link that directs viewers to the product page for that artwork, where ever that may be. Upon learning this I decided to do some fast data mining. I grabbed the first 500 artworks that showed up in my Buy Original Artwork from Nabaroo Artists stream. Following are the top print-on-demand/art products web sites that were linked to.

Online Vendor

Artworks

society6.com

174

etsy.com

68

redbubble.com

37

inprnt.com

17

storenvy.com

17

saatchiart.com

11

crated.com

7

altitxde.com

6

displate.com

5

bigcartel.com

5

teepublic.com

5

I was surprised by the dominance of Society6. Notably absent from this list are such popular print-on-demand art print sites as Artflakes, CafePress, FineArtAmerica, Imagekind, and Zazzle. At this point I must offer the following supplementary information. The above is simply a count based on the number of artworks and not artists. For example, all of the 174 artworks for Society6 could have come from one artist. So these numbers should not be used to judge how popular a platform is with artists. I could have produced that number but the process of associating artists with individual artworks would have required much more work on my part. However, I can say that these 500 artworks came from 221 artists and that the number of artworks per artist ranged from 1 to 11 with an average of 2.26 artworks per artist. So it is safe to say that based on this information, it appears that the three most popular platforms for artists who are active on Nabaroo are Society6, Etsy, and Redbubble.

Also with respect to the above table, it is worth noting that a few of the artists, rather than linking to a product page, directed their "Buy on" link back to non-product web sites like their Facebook fan page or their Nabaroo account. I don’t know that this is a strategy that I would use but it is clearly an option.

Adding Art to Nabaroo

Adding art (or videos) to Nabaroo is quite simple. The dialog for adding (nabbing) art gives artists the option to either upload an image or video from their computer or from a web page (a very nice option). Artists are offered the following fields to describe their art/video:

caption – a text field for providing a description of the art

collection – a drop down list that allows an artist to add the art to a collection (or to simultaneously create a new collection to which the art will be added)

Buy on link – a field for providing a link to where the art can be bought

tags – tags for categorizing the art for improved searches

When adding (aka nabbing) art, you also have the option to share your nab on one or more social networks simultaneously.

My Nabaroo Account

In reviewing Nabaroo, I really like what I’ve seen and have created an account. While I have yet to really begin posting content you can see my account at:

My only concern is with respect to their business model. At this time the site is free of advertisements and is free for artists to use. The only source of revenue I see is with respect to companies wanting to post job openings on the site – and even that is free for Nabaroo artists. As Nabaroo grows in popularity the site will require ever more computing resources to support that growth. I will be very curious to see what steps Nabaroo takes to generate the income they will need to pay their bills.